Wading Into The Apollo Waters

[Don Jeffries]

I admit I'm not an expert on the Apollo hoax issue, but I have done a bit of research. I have doubts that we went to the moon, but am not as firmly in the conspiracy camp as I am on most other issues. I have a question that maybe has been answered before, but I couldn't find any real information about it during a Google search.

Richard Nixon supposedly telephoned the Apollo 11 astronauts from the Oval Office. My question is: how did he do that? I understand that there was radio contact between NASA and the astronauts, but how could he use a telephone at the White House to call someone on the moon? Maybe I'm stupid, but that makes no sense to me. I apologize if this issue has been covered before on the forum.

[Ron Ecker]

Richard Nixon supposedly telephoned the Apollo 11 astronauts from the Oval Office. My question is: how did he do that?

My recollection is that Nixon talked to the astronauts after they landed, while they were still in quarantine (in case they brought back some deadly form of lunar life). They conversed via TV hookup. I remember seeing them talk on TV.

As for the landing being a hoax, I'll consider that possibility when someone explains how NASA came up with rocks that are 4.5 billion years old. They certainly were not found on Earth.

[Evan Burton]

Hi Don!

No, it has not been covered before. The phone call was certainly no technical challenge. It simply involved patching the phone call from Nixon into the communications circuit at Houston. From there, it was simply another radio transmission.

I can provide some more technical detail on how transmissions went from Earth to the Moon and the astronauts, if that's what you'd like.

[Evan Burton]

Richard Nixon supposedly telephoned the Apollo 11 astronauts from the Oval Office. My question is: how did he do that?

My recollection is that Nixon talked to the astronauts after they landed, while they were still in quarantine (in case they brought back some deadly form of lunar life). They conversed via TV hookup. I remember seeing them talk on TV.

As for the landing being a hoax, I'll consider that possibility when someone explains how NASA came up with rocks that are 4.5 billion years old. They certainly were not found on Earth.

Ron,

Nixon did talk to them on the carrier HORNET, and in person, but there was the famous 'phone call' on the Moon.

Two snippets come to mind about this.

Firstly, IIRC, Aldrin actually took a leak in his suit during the call. They wore specialised 'nappies' just for this purpose. Buzz needed to take a leak and the interruption to their surface activities provided just the opportunity (they weren't told in advance about the call).

Secondly - and I don't know if this is true or not but it supposedly comes from Aldrin himself - when they were in quarantine on the HORNET, Buzz got a little stir crazy after a couple days. The sailors on the HORNET were prevented from 'gawking' at the quarantine facility, being stopped by a Marine on guard. One sailor was walking past went he heard tapping. He looked over, and saw Buzz at the window, beckoning him over and pointing to the phone handset. The Marine guard was nowhere to be seen, so the sailor walked over and picked up the phone. Buzz quickly explained he was tired of the company of his crew, and frankly bored of talking nothing but the mission. Would the sailor talk to him for a while? What was the sailor's job on board? Was he married? Did he have kids? The sailor began to chat with Aldrin when the Marine guard appeared from around the mobile quarantine facility. He saw the sailor, and immediately motioned him away from the window. He picked up the phone handset and apologised to Aldrin for the sailor disturbing him! The last thing the sailor saw was a forlorn looking Aldrin at the window!

[Matthew Lewis]

The Apollo craft of course did not have phone numbers but as mentioned already, the phone system was patched into the radio system. Not difficult and still used today for other purposes. Quite often on JSTARS we would use a phone patch to call back to our home airfield to get the weather status or other details from across the country. Our comm techs would use the HF or UHF radios to first connect to a nearby base where somebody on the ground would patch us into the telephone system so we could call back to base. I've heard this was even used by those who happened to be deployed over the holidays to call home to their families on Christmas day while flying over Iraq.

[Terry Mauro]

I admit I'm not an expert on the Apollo hoax issue, but I have done a bit of research. I have doubts that we went to the moon, but am not as firmly in the conspiracy camp as I am on most other issues. I have a question that maybe has been answered before, but I couldn't find any real information about it during a Google search.

Richard Nixon supposedly telephoned the Apollo 11 astronauts from the Oval Office. My question is: how did he do that? I understand that there was radio contact between NASA and the astronauts, but how could he use a telephone at the White House to call someone on the moon? Maybe I'm stupid, but that makes no sense to me. I apologize if this issue has been covered before on the forum.

Don,

Why would you question the legitimacy of the JFK space program?

Here let me give you another way to look at it. Ask yourself how all these spinoffs into the US economy happened if the Kennedy Space Program was a fraud. This fake moon landing story just shows you what 40 plus years of cultural pessimism has done to the US population.

http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/eco...conomic_fa.html

It has been reported that for every pennie JFK invested into the space program returned $0.10 - $0.12 to the US economy in new design, productivity, etc.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Terry Mauro

[Evan Burton]

And of course you can ring ships at sea. The system is called INMARSAT. A commercial system, but even Australian warships have it installed. Great to be able to literally ring up the Ops Room aboard ask ask a question like 'when will you be finishing the current exercise?'... and this was in the days before mobile (cell) phones. Expensive, though. When I was in joint ops back in '95, it was $12 per minute. I don't imagine it's any cheaper now.

[Matthew Lewis]

And of course you can ring ships at sea. The system is called INMARSAT. A commercial system, but even Australian warships have it installed. Great to be able to literally ring up the Ops Room aboard ask ask a question like 'when will you be finishing the current exercise?'... and this was in the days before mobile (cell) phones. Expensive, though. When I was in joint ops back in '95, it was $12 per minute. I don't imagine it's any cheaper now.

We actually have that on the JSTARS now. Each jet has its own phone number but the connecivity is mainly used for SIPRNet traffic and MIRC chat. If you don't have access to a chatroom nowadays you're not really involved in the war. The price varies depending on how many channels you are using (1 to 4). IIRC, the price for full 4 channels is about $9 per minute.

[Evan Burton]

Don,

Are you happy with the answers given? Is there any clarification or further detail needed?